America’s Chernobyl’: Inside The Most Toxic Place In The Nation | TODAY

Cost to taxpayers to clean up nuclear waste jumps $100 billion in a year https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/cost-taxpayers-clean-nuclear-waste-jumps-100-billion-year-n963586 , 30 Jan 19,An Energy Department report shows the projected cost for long-term nuclear waste cleanup overseen by DOE jumped $100 billion in just one year. Jan. 29, 2019, By Laura Strickler, WASHINGTON— The estimated cost of cleaning up America’s nuclear waste has jumped more than $100 billion in just one year, according to a DOE report — and a watchdog warns the cost may climb still higher.

The Energy Department’s projected cost for cleanup jumped from $383.78 billion in 2017 to $493.96 billion in a financial report issued in December 2018.

A government watchdog and DOE expert said the new total may still underestimate the full cost of cleanup, which is expected to last another 50 years. “We believe the number is growing and we believe the number is understated,” said David Trimble, director of the Government Accountability Office’s Natural Resources and Environment team.

The cost was calculated by the accounting firm KPMG under contract to DOE.

The 586-square-mile site, home to nine former production reactors and processing facilities, produced plutonium for America’s nuclear arsenal during the Cold War.

Cleaning up Hanford has already cost taxpayers $170 billion over 30 years, but government auditors say the most challenging parts of the clean-up work are yet to be done.

Still not cleaned up are 56 million gallons of what the DOE’s inspector general has described as “hazardous and highly radioactive waste.” The rise in projected cost is due to updated estimates for building and running a waste treatment plant, including “operating costs, tank farm retrieval and closure costs” at the site, according to the report. The report also refers to changes in “technical approach or scope” and “updated estimates of projected waste volumes.”

Trimble of the GAO believes the Energy Department “does not have a coherent strategic plan on how to address its cleanup mission.”

A spokesperson for the Energy Department said in an emailed statement that the office that oversees the cleanup is “committed to making progress on the ground at Hanford, and mitigating the years of escalating liabilities at the site.”

The spokesperson said DOE expects more cost increases “and is working with regulators and stakeholders on best options to treat and dispose of radioactive waste.”

In mid-December, DOE issued a financial report with a signed letter from U.S. Energy Department Secretary Rick Perry on the fourth page. Perry’s letter lists the agency’s accomplishments and describes the agency’s environmental cleanup activities. He cited the completion of an underground project at Hanford, but does not mention the projected increase in costs to taxpayers.

“PLAGUED WITH MISMANAGEMENT”

For decades, government auditors have raised serious concerns about the lack of clear goals for the site and long term problems with the cleanup.

A 2018 report from the DOE’s inspector general rolled up 38 investigations the IG had conducted on the environmental management efforts at Hanford.

The IG concluded Hanford has been “plagued with mismanagement, poor internal controls, and fraudulent activities, resulting in monetary impacts totalling hundreds of millions of dollars by the various contractors at the site.”

Bechtel, one of the large government contractors that manages site cleanup, was part of a group of contractors that paid a $125 million settlement in 2016, the largest settlement ever obtained by the agency’s inspector general.

The U.S. had alleged Bechtel improperly used federal taxpayer dollars to fund a multi-year lobbying effort in Congress to continue the funding of its contract.

In response to the recent Energy Department report Bechtel spokesperson Fred deSousa notes that the waste treatment plant they are building in Hanford is “the most complex project of its kind in the world.” DeSousa also told NBC in his statement that the project has gone through multiple independent reviews resulting in changes to its contract. “Today the project is bigger, more robust, and has more stringent operating and safety margins,” he said.

The new Democratic chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee says the committee will increase its oversight of Hanford.

“It is essential that DOE better manage and oversee its contractors to ensure that taxpayers, workers and the environment are being protected” said Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., D-N.J. “The Committee will continue to have questions for DOE as to whether cleanup efforts at Hanford and other sites are being properly managed.”

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And there is still the cost of cleaning up the more than 15,000 abandoned Uranium mines, which nobody is talking about, that continue to pollute the land, water and air and cause cancer, auto-immune diseases and birth defects. When will that happen? See Clean Up The Mines dot org.

Don’t believe the spin on thorium being a greener nuclear option http://tinyurl.com/zk8jt3a Ecologist: thorium is merely a way of deflecting attention and criticism from the dangers of the uranium fuel cycle and excusing the pumping of more money into the industry. It produces less radioactive waste and more power but it remains unproven on a commercial scale. ‘Even if thorium technology does progress to the point where it might be commercially viable, it will face the same problems as conventional nuclear: it is not renewable or sustainable and cannot effectively connect to smart grids. The technology is not tried and tested, and none of the main players is interested. Thorium reactors are no more than a distraction.

To listen to Dr. Caldicott’s earlier interviews with Dr. Makhijani, click HERE Best of 2008/2009: Dr. Arjun Makhijani on a clean-energy future without nuclear power, oil or coal http://tinyurl.com/z6b48l7

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HERE: Dr. Arjun Makhijani on the stunning potential for solar, wind and other green energy to replace fossil fuels and nuclear power right now http://tinyurl.com/j9s93mh

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and HERE. Why nuclear power is not the solution to global warming, and how renewables can power everythinghttp://tinyurl.com/hg72gf2

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Did you know every thorium reactor would require a reprocessing center? Also #Thorium Reactor would be enriching bomb grade material and present a bigger proliferation problem. Also problems getting heat sink from the intense heat that is generated and you have to worry about capturing all the deadly isotopes that are created. Have not worked out the kinks of sodium circuit boards frying.

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Without exception, [thorium reactors] have never been commercially viable, nor do any of the intended new designs even remotely seem to be viable. Like all nuclear power production they rely on extensive taxpayer subsidies; the only difference is that with thorium and other breeder reactors these are of an order of magnitude greater, which is why no government has ever continued their funding.’

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All other issues aside, thorium is still nuclear energy, say environmentalists, its reactors disgorging the same toxic byproducts and fissile waste with the same millennial half-lives. Oliver Tickell, author of Kyoto2, says the fission materials produced from thorium are of a different spectrum to those from uranium-235, but ‘include many dangerous-to-health alpha and beta emitters’.

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Tickell says thorium reactors would not reduce the volume of waste from uranium reactors. ‘It will create a whole new volume of radioactive waste from previously radio-inert thorium, on top of the waste from uranium reactors. Looked at in these terms, it’s a way of multiplying the volume of radioactive waste humanity can create several times over.’

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Thorium cannot in itself power a reactor; unlike natural uranium, it does not contain enough fissile material to initiate a nuclear chain reaction. As a result it must first be bombarded with neutrons to produce the highly radioactive isotope uranium-233 – ‘so these are really U-233 reactors,’ says Karamoskos.

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This isotope is more hazardous than the U-235 used in conventional reactors, he adds, because it produces U-232 as a side effect (half life: 160,000 years), on top of familiar fission by-products such as technetium-99 (half life: up to 300,000 years) and iodine-129 (half life: 15.7 million years).Add in actinides such as protactinium-231 (half life: 33,000 years) and it soon becomes apparent that thorium’s superficial cleanliness will still depend on digging some pretty deep holes to bury the highly radioactive waste. http://tinyurl.com/zk8jt3a

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Check out Helen Caldicott Playlist http://tinyurl.com/hgbxqv6 is an Australian physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate who has founded several associations dedicated to opposing the use of nuclear power, depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons proliferation, war, and…